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🐦 Not used to people 🧠 Not used to stimulus
unhabituated

unhabituated

8.9
Not used to repeated sounds or events and still reacting to them
  • adjective
  • /ˌʌn.həˈbɪtʃ.u.eɪ.tɪd/
  • Specialized
: no habituado
  • The animal remained unhabituated to the sound, reacting strongly each time it was played.

Examples

  • Researchers observed that the subject was still unhabituated after several days of repeated exposure.

  • The unhabituated subjects reacted strongly to the loud noise.

  • Because the children were unhabituated to the new routine, they found it difficult to adjust.

  • Children are often unhabituated to the sounds of the city.

  • The dog remained unhabituated to the fireworks, barking loudly every time they went off.

  • After moving to the new city, she felt unhabituated to the bustling environment and noise.

  • The participants who were unhabituated to the experiment showed a significant response to the stimuli.

Synonyms

unaccustomed to
vsunhabituated
7 5.3

Not used to something because you have not done it often

is mainly about reduced responsiveness to repeated stimuli in psychology and physiology
unused to
vsunhabituated
4 4.2

Not familiar with a thing or situation

emphasizes physiological reduced response to repeated stimuli rather than general unfamiliarity

Antonyms

accustomed
141 3.4

Familiar with something because you do it often

How Habituated

accustomed
141 3.4
unhabituated
  • Specialized
8.9
novel
74 5.1

Surface Forms

unhabituated positive

Morphology

unhabituated = habituated (semi-transparent) = un + habituate + ed

The negation 'un-' applied to the adjective 'habituated' is a straightforward morphological operation.

Etymology

Unhabituated is made from un- 'not' and habituate, from the same root as habit, which means 'to make usual'. So, in psychology it means someone or an animal has not become used to a repeated sound or event and still reacts to it.